Mommy Diaries - A mother’s worst nightmare - adventures turn into nightmares, preparing to go home

Larger Text

Print

E-mail

12 Comments

Colum and baby Sadie safe and fast asleep.

Tweet

An adventure on his own outside nearly turned to disaster for baby Colum, but his mom April Drew turned out to be more hurt than he was.  April also writes about the family’s last weeks in New York as they await the move to Ireland.

It's a sound no mother wants to hear. The shrill of her child, almost animal like, coming from the distance.

Two weeks ago my son Colum was playing outside. We have a small patio area at the side of our home. There are two gates at either end, one leading to the front of the house (and the main road) and the second opens onto 12 steps down to the back garden.

I was by the door packing Easter decorations into a box when all of a sudden I could hear a frightening roar from outside. At first I thought it came from one of the older kids next door. I automatically dropped what I was doing and ran outside.

I couldn’t see Colum, my 16-month-old, anywhere. My initial thoughts were that he had been kidnapped. Where could he have gone in the space of a minute?

Then out of the corner of my eye I could see the gate leading down to the back garden open. There at the bottom of the 12 concrete steps lay my little boy. His face was pressed against the cold stone and his breaths were so deep he found it hard to cry.

I raced down and swooped him up in my arms. He cried like I’ve never heard him cry before. He had managed to open the gate and fall head first down the 12 steps.

Did I mention they were concrete! His face was swollen like a balloon.

Thankfully nothing seemed to be broken, and at the bribe of some left-over Easter egg he seemed to calm right down and finally stop crying.

Erring on the side of caution, we brought him to Westchester Medical Center – it’s a trauma one hospital. Thankfully after a few hours of observation Colum was back to his normal self, despite having a face like he just went 12 rounds with Floyd Mayweather.

I wasn’t the better of the accident for a few days. That night when we came home from the hospital and had both Colum and our now nine-week-old baby girl, Sadie, sound asleep I sat on the couch with John, my husband, and cried. 

It was my fault he fell. I hadn’t checked the gate latch before allowing him to play outside. His injuries were extremely minor, but they could have been a whole lot worse.

That night I went to sleep vividly remembering the little person at the bottom of the steps, helpless and in pain. Many have told me since “it happens to every child” and “it’s the first of many,” so I guess the worst is over me – his first major fall and all that.

So now the real countdown is on for our big move back to Ireland. We are four weeks away from filling a small container with our life’s belongings.

It’s hardly believable really that it has come around so fast. We are already meeting friends for the last goodbyes. Who knows when we will see some of them again.

It’s really and truly heartbreaking not knowing the next time I’ll be able to give my best friend in New York, Marion, a big hug, or when I’ll taste Tara Tobin’s roast chicken dinners or have a long natter about life with Gerry Gleeson over a cuppa. Or have play dates with my friend’s children or any of that good stuff.

Print

E-mail

Tweet